
NEW DELHI, April 30: More than 1,300 working children and volunteers of the NGO forum for Street and Working Children took out a rally here today on the occasion of National Child Labour Day to demand better school facilities and proper rehabilitation programmes.
The marchers, representing 17 leading member NGOs of the forum started their rally from the Delhi Council for Child Welfare and handed over their charter of demands to Delhi Welfare Minister Krishna Thirath.
The demands include more child-friendly night shelters, vocational training programmes and better sanitation and drinking water facilities in slum areas.
Meanwhile, thousands of postcards were mailed to the Prime Minister by child labourers, organisations and other concerned people demanding that education be made a fundamental right through a constitutional amendment.
The postcard campaign was initiated all over the country today by the Campaign Against Child Labour which has called for the day to be renamed as No Child Labour Day.
The postcard campaign is part of a larger campaign that supports the 83rd amendment Bill to make education a fundamental right.
8220;Though the Lok Sabha has been dissolved, we believe that this campaign has added significance in the context of the coming general elections. CACL considers the postcard campaign a first step taken towards an intensified campaign among various political parties urging them to incorporate the commitment to make education a fundamental right in their respective manifestoes8221;, Jaspreet Kaur, coordinator of CACL8217;s advocacy unit, said.